4-2 Rodeo Preview

TROY, Ala. – The Troy women’s rodeo team has won three straight events in 2013, and add the two wins from last fall and they’ve won more than half of the rodeos in the 2012-13 season in the Ozark Region. After trailing Southern Arkansas in the points all of last fall, the Trojans have now taken over the top spot and carry a 500-point advantage into this weekend’s rodeo action at Northwest Mississippi Community College. Most of Troy’s late dominance has came in the goat tying and breakaway roping events, where Kelsey Kennemer, Kassandra Smith, Kesia Smith and Lanie Culligan have all been huge contributors to the momentum swing. Loni Pearce of Southern Arkansas has held a firm lead in goat tying all year, but that lead has quickly diminished as both Kassandra and Kesia Smith enter this weekend’s action just 10 points off the lead. Culligan, with 340 points, enters in sixth. Kennemer, who has focused more on breakaway roping, sits 13 in goat tying with 140 points. Kennemer has opened up her lead in the breakaway event to nearly 100 points over Chelsey Merrigan of Missouri Valley College. While the women have been dominant over the past few months, the  men have recently made strides and improved in the standings to seventh in a region solely dominated by Tennessee-Martin and Missouri Valley. Nelson Wyatt enters with a sixth-place standing in tie down roping, and sits tenth in steer wrestling with 220 points thus far in the season. Zack Mabry has been a consistent competitor in the team roping event paired with Tennessee-Martin’s Ben Walker, and they both enter the weekend in third with 445 points, just 10 off second place. The weekend’s rodeo will be the ninth stop of the year for the Ozark Region, and will be held at the Northwest Mississippi Community College Multipurpose Arena from Thursday, April 4, to Saturday, April 6. The main event will begin at 7:30 each night and will feature cowboys and cowgirls from 20 universities and colleges across the southeast.